Northern hosted an amazing show of two young, local artists this past month. The opening was truly an event to behold with costumed creatures drumming in circles (think Show Biz comes alive) as well as a lot of attractive, hip kids. The information from the press release is pasted below along with some photos of the opening for your enjoyment.

For the month of January, Northern is pleased to exhibit the work of two Olympia based artists, Joel Allen Davenport and Ryan Converse. The opening reception for the artists was Sunday, January 10 from 4p -7pm. The show ran through January.

Statements provided by the artists:

Joel Allen Davenport

Warm Ghosts is a on-going project of former Denver, CO resident and more recently Olympia, WA space cadet, Joel Davenport. Mostly working in watercolor and ink mediums, he has been meditatively crafting psychedelic, visceral pieces that inhabit their own dimension with their own set of rules, unique characters, waveform patterns, and inspirations while still existing on the same plane.

Inspired by all things obsolete, living or dead, and especially cultural, occult, and religious transcending experiences, Warm Ghosts embraces all forms and spectrum of conversation with the artwork from intricate doodles, a trip that explores earth’s culture through flowing black lines and bursts of color or simply being cute. Warm Ghosts’ goal is to unconditionally love, converse, collaborate or, at the very least, interact with you.

Ryan Converse

I have begun to think of my work as an act of mythopoeia.  I think of each piece I create in relation to my body of work as a whole. With this show I present maps, photos, scaled models and artifacts from a place I call the Valley of the Leafling. Each piece is a viewing portal, which I use to look through to this world and understand it more completely. I choose to work in a variety of mediums to represent this place through as many viewpoints as possible. I have found many old mythologies that match with my subconscious creations, most notably the archetype of the green man, or the foliate head, a figure that represents rebirth, which has appeared in many cultures throughout the ages. I hope that for a time you can suspend your disbelief and gaze upon this valley with unclouded eyes.

Joel Allen Davenport:

Ryan Converse (creature costumes also by Ryan):